


Every Librarian Has Her Day

by mad_martha



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Drama, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-28
Updated: 2011-08-28
Packaged: 2017-10-23 04:39:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/246353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mad_martha/pseuds/mad_martha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What did Madam Pince do during the Battle of Hogwarts?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Librarian Has Her Day

She is not an obvious warrior in this conflict. Her role is strictly defined at the best of times: She is the guardian of accumulated knowledge. To her falls the welfare of parchment, vellum, boards and bindings. For all her role in the nourishment of minds and souls, at the end of the day the training of those minds and souls rests with others. She cares for the most important tools of their education, but she is not the instrument herself.

And yet.

And yet here, between these four walls of the school library, lies Civilisation itself. She feels the weight of it on her shoulders as she patrols the aisles between the shelves, straightening a title here ( _Charms To Build Fortresses, vol. III_ by Petronius P. Cullis, pub. 1232, 23rd Ed.) and re-shelving a misplaced volume there ( _How To Wart A Toad And Other Pointless Pursuits_ by Ermina Trifling). She hears it whispering to her when she locks the gates into the Restricted Section at night.

Everyone has their part to play.

When the Battle of Hogwarts commences, she does not immediately join the fray. She is a competent duellist, but not a great one and in any case her first duty lies elsewhere.

When the word came that Pius Thicknesse's government intended to take over the school, imposing its own headmaster and several new 'approved' teachers, she had guessed at what might happen next. Madam Pince comes from a long line of Hogwarts librarians and distinguished magical archivists and she is not the first to face dark wars, revolutions and - worst of all - the accompanying censorship. There are things she knows about this school that only her ancestors have been privy to.

By the time she has to consider the possibility that the contents of the school may burn, many of the most valuable and vulnerable books have already been moved to safe hiding places deep within the castle's eldritch structure that only she and the ghosts of the Founders know about. There is a whole second library hidden safely away within the Come-And-Go Room for a start. The enormous card catalogue she has presided over for decades has been hidden too and a suitably amended copy installed in its place.

That still leaves the remaining contents of the library to be protected. She will not leave a single volume to an ignominious fate if she can help it.

Closing the doors to the library and barring them, she goes to stand in the central aisle and speaks the charms, complex and long since committed to memory, that she learned at her mother's elbow when she was a young witch. And slowly the towering bookshelves begin the move. Madam Pince quickly turns to the many tables and chairs that litter the library and waves her wand, Banishing them into great clattering stacks out of the way of the shelves as they roll gracefully one after another towards the nearest walls. The stonework retracts and the bookshelves are absorbed. It takes time and while this is happening Madam Pince walks briskly to the Restricted Section.

This part of the library has long since been neutered, ever since the first hint that the Carrows were coming reached her ears. To the untrained or ignorant eye, the books on the shelves are just the same as they have always been; rack upon rack of chained and darkly menacing leather-bound volumes that hint at dark secrets within. Take a book off the shelf and open it, and you will not be disappointed by the contents.

But these books are dangerous for another reason entirely; they contain lies. Much false and deliberately misleading magic has been written of over the centuries with the intention of creating mischief and worse, and Hogwarts possesses a copy of every example of such deceit. The Carrows, however, don't know that. Few people do. The Dark Lord's unwanted subordinates have made very free with the Restricted Section since their arrival at Hogwarts, with Madam Pince's blessings.

Now she performs another charm and the shelves full of falsehoods slide forward, rotate 180 degrees and slide back into place again, and the original contents are returned. Madam Pince considers them for a long moment.

The noise of the battle outside the library doors is intruding into the traditional peace and tranquillity of the library. She dare not allow it to distract her.

Making her decision, she orders several of the shelves - ticking them off, one by one, with a tap of her wand - to follow the others in the main library, and they slowly begin to roll to safety, until a single bookshelf is left standing against the far wall. Its contents are secured with more than just chains; this is not a bookshelf that is accessible to the students with any level of permission. Released, many of these books will become dangerous without human interference. Opening the covers will have consequences.

Madam Pince unchains the books and dismisses the charms.

And she pauses.

She hears the growing storm outside the library doors, but she is not thinking of Hogwarts in that moment. In her mind she is in ancient Alexandria as barbarians storm the great library, bent upon destroying its priceless contents. The librarians died trying to save the books entrusted to them. But Madam Pince intends to do better than that. By opening these books she will be taking war out of the library and directly to the school's attackers.

She takes the books off the shelves, placing them on the ledge at the front of the bookcase, and takes a deep breath before she begins to open the covers.

Every librarian has her day and today is Irma Pince's.

**Author's Note:**

> A podfic version of this story, read by Winkingstar, can be found [here](http://audiofic.jinjurly.com/every-librarian-has-her-day-audiobook).


End file.
